Marketing Management

APPLE iPhone 4S as a failure in India

Pricing Failure

1. Apple crushed people’s expectations by launching an iPhone 4S in India instead of iPhone 5 which was widely anticipated.

2. Apple launched its much awaited iPhone 4S in India at a price of Rs 44,500, which was highest in any other part of the world. It deterred the Indian population to purchase it. In US the iPhone 4S was traded at a price 35% lower than what was announced in India.

3. In India mostly internet savvy people desired an iPhone 4S & were keeping an eye over international pricing. After the announcement of its higher prices in India, they were disappointed as in US, an Apple iPhone 4S was launched at the same price as was iPhone 4 was launched.

4. People in India were not benefited by asking someone else to get a iPhone 4S for them from US or Singapore as , unlike iPad and Apple computers, the international warranty was not available with iPhone 4S outside the boundaries of the country from where the device would be purchased.

5. There were many cheaper and equally competitive smartphones available in the Indian market. For example Samsung Galaxy S2 was much cheaper than iPhone 4S in India than in US. Samsung series 9 could be purchased at a price which was 26.5 % lower than what Apple was charging for its iPhone4S.

Aesthetic & Technological Failure

6. iPhone 4S was similar in design with the earlier model iPhone 4, in the look and feel, while people were expecting it to be much slimmer with a wider screen.

7. iPhone 4S was perceived as a modest update of iPhone 4 rather than a revolutionary product as iPhone 5.

8. IPhone 4S accepted only factory made microSIMs.9. IPhone 4S use to take a lot of time to connect to a network.

10. People had a lot of sim card failure problems, where there sim card was shown as an invalid card. Moreover people were unable to find easy help for themselves.

11. 3G coverage was not good in India and iPhone 4S did not have any toggle switch to switch it off

Communication Failure

12. Apple did not have a direct communication channel with consumers in India and hence failed to connect its iPhone 4S with the Indian people.

13. Apple did not run its own marketing campaigns in India as it did in U.S. Apple outsourced the marketing and communication of iPhone 4S to service operators.

14. Apple iPhone dint reached out well because Airtel ran some TV commercials for only four weeks on few channels and Vodafone informed iPhone’s 4 entry in India through envelops carrying bills.

15. The communication lack enthusiasm which was reflected in Indian consumers too.16. Apple iPhone was a high end product. It reflected advance technology and status, but the same was

not communicated to the target consumers.

Distribution Failure

17. iPhone was licensed to Airtel and Vodafone who did not have any experience in retail sale of handsets, one of the most complex businesses in India, as different income groups have to be served at one time.

18. iPhones were made available only at the outlets of Airtel and Vodafone, thereby limiting its availability to a very small number.

19. The service providers made the iPhones available with the lock-in condition, which means that consumers cannot retain their handsets if they wish to switch to some other operator. At that time in India people were to avail the benefits of Mobile Number Portability or (MNP) which iPhones dint allow. And people dint want to be married to one operator but to switch to another whenever they like.

Sources

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-04/tech/30241947_1_3gs-iphone-model-new-iphone

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-11-21/news/30424680_1_iphone-canalys-latest-smartphone

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/itslideshow/10867960.cms

http://www.indiabroadband.net/apple/11446-why-apple-iphone-failure-india.html

As a success in IndiaThe instant noodle market in India is about 1300 crores. Initially it was dominated by Nestle with its two minute noodle brand “Maggie”. They were enjoying a huge chunk of 90% of the whole market until other entrants came in. There were two other brands present as well, Ching’s secret and Wai – Wai but they failed to give Maggie a very tough competition and were left with only 10 % - 15% of the market. In 2009 Maggie’s share dipped from 90% to 80 % due to entry of new brands such as Foodles from Horlicks, Knorr soupy noodles from HUL and Sunfeast Yippee! from ITC. But out of all these brands it is Sunfeast Yippee which is able to successfully challenge Maggie and make a strong position for itself. Sunfeast Yippee was launched in December 2010 and in such a short period of time it made a prominent position for itself. This happened due to following reasons:

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

1. Consumer earlier had limited or almost no choice for their instant noodles. Thus they were consuming a single brand again and again.

2. Sunfeast Yippee! Brought two flavors (Magic Masala and Classic Masala), both were available at the same price of Rs 10.

3. Consumers liked the number of choices they were getting in instant noodles and they wanted to try more and more new variants.

4. Consumers were getting all these variants at competitive prices, thus it was easy for them to switch.

DIFFERENTIATED PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES

5. Yippee had round stacks of noodles which differentiated it from other noodles. The round stack can easily be cooked in any round shape pan without breaking the whole stack unlike other noodles, which were rectangular in shape. Due to this innovative idea people were able to enjoy longer noodles strands.

6. Another important attribute of Yippee is its non – stickiness. Other noodles while serving after a getting cooled down used to stick with each other which consumers did not like. Yippee changed this phenomenon and was very much appreciated by the consumers.

COMMUNICATION

7. Yippee has run three advertisements in total in order to highlight three main reasons to purchase and have Yippee instead of Maggie. The reasons are

a) New Sunfeast Yippee Noodles has flavor choice even in masala. b) New Sunfeast Yippee noodles are non-lumpy.c) New Sunfeast Yippee Noodles is round in shape.

8. These advertisements were a strong and a direct blow on Maggie.Below are the links to all the three advertisements respectively:

a) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU3WCgIDjb8 b) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIG5uUZQm9Q c) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aIWsqb0jR0

PACKAGING

9. Yippee played the communication part in a very clever manner by using its packaging. Yippee opted for yellow and red as its packet color. Yellow for associating it with the product category to which Maggie belongs and red to differentiate itself it that category.

10. Yellow and red are also bright and vibrant colors which appealed to young consumers.

SOURCES

http://www.itcportal.com/about-itc/newsroom/press-reports/PressReport.aspx?id=1047&type=C&news=Not-a-two-minute-war

http://strategicmoves.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/sunfeast-yippee-noodles-targeting-maggie-with-benefit-positioning/

Successful Launch of World’s No.1 biscuit Oreo in India

Oreo

Brief Introduction:

Cadbury India (now owned by Kraft Food’s, US) launched Oreo biscuit successfully in India in March 2011. Cadbury launched it under the category of premium Chocolate cream biscuit segment.

Indian Biscuit Market:

In six months, Kraft Foods' Oreo has captured more space in India's Rs 5,500 Crores cream-biscuits segment than Britannia's Treat-O could in nine, and also causing an impact on its Bourbon brand.

Oreo, the world's largest cookie brand, had about 6% market share in the quarter ended September as compared with Treat-O's 1%, industry sources said quoting market research firm Nielsen.

In the Rs 675-crore chocolate cream biscuit sub-category, the market share of Britannia's Bourbon brand has fallen from 70% in the March quarter to 45% in the September quarter. Oreo's share in this category stands at over 31%.

Reasons for the success of Oreo in India:

Competitive prices:

1. For Oreo, this is its second stint in India. It first entered the country through the import route, but its cream-filled sandwich cookies made little sales traction due to its premium sticker price.

2. The locally manufactured Oreo launched in April, almost a century after it was introduced in the US market, Kraft slashed its price to Rs 5 for a pack of three biscuits, Rs 10 for a pack of seven, and Rs 20 for 14.

3. So it could reach to every segment of the consumer even after being a premium brand.

Brand Value of Cadbury:

4. Oreo is the hundred year old billion dollar brand of Kraft Food, US. Even then Kraft did not launch it in India with its own name. It kept itself separate from this brand in India and launched it as a brand of Cadbury which had already created a space in Chocolate Industry.

5. Since Oreo is also a combination of dark chocolate biscuit and vanilla cream so they utilized the full brand value of Cadbury India.

Distribution Channel of Cadbury India:

6. Kraft Food used the Cadbury India's 1.2 million-store network in urban and rural India to its fullest. 7. Cadbury cracked its distribution well for Oreo, given the correlation between chocolates and biscuits.

The company was innovative with lower-priced packs and bet on the recognition for the foreign brand,8. Though their target was consumers of premium brands but low prices made it possible to attract medium

and upper medium segment.

Blitzkrieg Marketing:

9. "Right at the onset, Cadbury India adopted a strategy to drive awareness and rapid trials. Cadbury is

spending one third of its marketing budgets on below the ground activities and trade outlet promotions.

10. For the promotion of Oreo, Kraft Food has spent huge amount of money on its promotional activities.

Twist, Lick, Dunk! (TLD) guide

Oreo launched its Commercial which became a hit and touched the emotional part of

relationship between Father and son. They used this insight of Neilson India.

“Link of Commercial Ad of Cadbury Oreo”

Oreo Togetherness Campaign : Cadbury India has launched Oreo-Time initiative, as a part of which a fully branded 'Oreotogetherness' Bus

will travel across nine cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Pune, Lucknow,

Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mysore.

It helped Oreo in increasing the visibility and to attach the product with consumers.

So due to all of these above reasons Cadbury India launched Oreo Biscuit in India very successfully and captured a big pie of market share of its segment of Chocolate cream biscuit..

Sources:

http://www.cadburyindia.com/in/en/MediaCenter/Oreobiscuit.aspx

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-03-03/news/28650799_1_parle-products-parle-g-glucose-biscuit

http://www.afaqs.com/news/story.html?sid=30817

http://www.watawards.com/awards-winners/

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/03/07/oreo-cookies-and-indias-sweet-tooth/#axzz1muijc6CT

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/cadbury-india-bonding-over-biscuits/442199/